Communication between systems within an aircraft is essential to safe operation in the aircraft. When a primary interconnect bus or wireless connection of one system becomes unreliable or unusable, communication with that aircraft system becomes compromised. Conventional communications systems typically involve the use of equipment, such as physical cables or wiring, that add weight to an aircraft, or occupy space in the aircraft, or both. Adding a wireless system for example, to provide a secondary or back-up communications means would also introduce additional equipment and weight. Thus, the limitations of such communications systems provide a disincentive, rather than a solution, for establishing a secondary or back-up avionics communications infrastructure. Overcoming such limitations would improve aircraft safety by providing an alternate communications network between systems operating on an aircraft.
An interconnect that avionics systems on an aircraft commonly have is a connection to the aircraft power. An aircraft's power bus network is used to provide primary power to different systems on the aircraft, and hence the power bus network is connected to practically all of the aircraft's systems that consume power.